Certainly the most popular person in Paradise was the “Basket Woman.” But one day a Paradise girl, who rejoiced in the name of Fan Burton, spread through the Grove the news that their “Basket Woman” was not a basket woman at all, but a lady, who only pretended to sell things that she might “get round them.” Fanny had seen her dressed and talking to a gentleman. Why this should make any difference it would be difficult to tell; but after Fan had cleverly and maliciously circulated this news, the women chose to feel themselves “sold,” and a strange reaction set in. “She has had us nicely!” said Fan. “Let’s pay her out for it. I shouldn’t wonder if she turns out one of them female detectives, or, perhaps, she’s worse; how do we know as that drink and medicine ain’t poison? I don’t trust her one bit. Well, I ain’t had none of her rubbish, except a scrubbing-brush, and that can’t hurt me much.”
Then other women took the same tone; one especially told how she had been impudent enough to interfere when Mrs. Broggins beat her Sammy, as if a woman mightn’t do what she liked with her own brat. And what business was it of that Basket Woman’s, so long as Sammy wasn’t killed? She talked about fetching the police, she did—ah! she forgot herself then; she was mostly a meek-faced thing enough, but everybody had seen how she flared up about that boy—“a himperant, hinterferen ’ussy” as she was!
Things looked rather black for the Basket Woman; and it would have been well if some one could have warned her. But there was no one to do it, and she came into the Grove as usual, with a smile upon her face.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, pleasantly, “I dare say you know as well as anybody how to knit?”
“It ain’t no business of yours whether I do or not,” said the woman, in tones that became louder with every word. Then a shout came down the road. “Basket Woman! come here! I want a talk with you.”
A loud guffaw from all the women at all the doors showed that something had happened to make the dwellers in the Grove angry. The Basket Woman was not very courageous, and her first impulse was to fly; but she went toward the person who had called her.
“Will you have some wool?” she asked. But the person addressed turned angrily upon her.
“Wool, indeed? No; nor anything else that you have. I’ll tell you what you are! You are a sneaking hypocrite.”
A flush shot over the refined face, the basket was put down, and she faced the woman and the group that had gathered curiously around her. “Now, what is the matter? And what does all this mean?”
A torrent of abuse was poured upon her. She stood perfectly still, and her face was now white but firm. Presently, when there was a lull, she said, in a quiet, penetrating voice, “How hard and unkind you women can be!”